Verizon Wireless won't make any new friends with this latest move to swat down heavy downloaders

When Verizon Wireless announced
that the iPhone 4 would be coming to its network, the company made sure to
make everyone know that its network was prepared to handle the onslaught of new
devices. After all, Verizon Wireless is home to numerous Android devices which
themselves tend to be data hungry.

Today, however, we're getting news that Verizon Wireless has
plans to keep its network "in check" to ensure that it doesn't run
into the same roadblocks as AT&T. Boy
Genius Report noticed that the company has posted a new notice on its
site [PDF]
that targets heavy downloaders:

Verizon
Wireless strives to provide customers the best experience when using our
network, a shared resource among tens of millions of customers. To help achieve
this, if you use an extraordinary amount of data and fall within the top 5% of
Verizon Wireless data users we may reduce your data throughput speeds
periodically for the remainder of your then current and immediately following
billing cycle to ensure high quality network performance for other users at
locations and times of peak demand. Our proactive management of the Verizon
Wireless network is designed to ensure that the remaining 95% of data customers
aren't negatively affected by the inordinate data consumption of just a few
users.

Unfortunately, there is no indication of what threshold has
to be crossed before Verizon Wireless will start throttling your speeds; and
there is no indication of how slow your data speeds will be after getting
busted by the company.

This new measure is effective starting today for those that sign a new contract or renew a contract.

The data throttling isn't the only change coming to Verizon
Wireless. The company also announced that it is incorporating new transcoding
technology into its network to help streamline data transfers. You can read
more info about this technology here.

Yesterday, AT&T announced that it would be expanding its
tethering
data allowance from 2GB to 4GB. This was seen as a move to better align the
company with Verizon Wireless' data plans for the iPhone 4.

"The whole principle [of censorship] is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak." -- Robert Heinlein